It may be safely affirmed that from our first settlement on the coast until the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, we did not confer one lasting benefit upon the people.

TODAY is February 23 and on this date 200 years ago, the House of Commons in London voted almost unanimously to ban the hideous trade in African slaves through British dominions. To follow the British official quoted above, this was perhaps the only benefit bestowed upon the benighted peoples of that section of West Africa known as the "Guinea Coast", after some three centuries of contact with some European nations.

This year is thus an anniversary of very considerable significance to countries where African slaves were taken over many decades of the transatlantic trade in human cargo. It is also an anniversary year for those whose ancestors were affected by Arab slave trading on the eastern coast of Africa, for Arab shipping and slave bases would eventually feel the sting of English efforts to stamp out the trade through the instrument of the Royal Navy.

In Britain, considerable funds have been allocated to this commemoration of the abolition of the slave trade, including a new museum in a major town of the slaving commerce. Friends from the West Indies have pointed out, however, that no funds had been deemed fit to dispense to those overseas territories that were highly affected by the British slave trade.IN Bermuda, we have a number of significant anniversary years in this first decade of the 21st millennium, but the allocation of resources could perhaps be improved and this year would be a good opportunity to do so.In 2005, we celebrated the 500th anniversary of the discovery of Bermuda by the Spanish pilot Juan Bermudez, whose last name gave the island its famous appellation, if only for many for the mysterious Triangle or colourful shorts.

The Bermuda Rig, used by nearly all modern sailing yachts, is less well appreciated, but is perhaps our greatest cultural and technological gift to the world at large, likely invented and developed by black and white Bermudian sailors, plying the contrary winds and waters of our northern coast.

In 2009, we have the bicentenary of the establishment of the Dockyard and the 400th anniversary of wreck of the>Sea Venture, accounts of which led to the beginning of permanent settlement in 1612. With a bit of luck, some of us may be around to commemorate the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery itself in British territories in 2034.

The other anniversary marked in 2005 was the bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar, a major turning point on October 21, 1805 that would have a considerable effect on the slave trade. On that day, the Royal Navy became the superpower oceanic force and remained so until the development of American, German and Japanese navies prior to the First World War. THE significance of Trafalgar for the slave trade was that it freed up ships to be employed in the interception and capture of slavers on the east and west coasts of Africa and elsewhere, such as the Caribbean.Also today, presumably in commemoration of the abolition of the British slave trade, the filI>Amazing Grace opens across the United States.

It takes its title from the famous hymn written by a former slaver captain, John Newton, but the film is about the life of William Wilberforce, whose 20-year campaign brought the "Slave Trade Act" into being in the British Parliament on February 23, 1807.

After an epiphany, Wilberforce wrote in his diary in October 1787, that God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners, or morals.

It is unclear how far he got with the latter, but the former is the reason for commemorating this day 200 years on.

Wilberforce went on to campaign for the abolition of slavery itself, literally for the rest of his life, dying a month before the passage of the "Slavery Abolition Act" that gave freedom to slaves through the British Empire in August 1833.

While Wilberforce campaigned in the hostile political waters of London, the Royal Navy was active on the high seas.

One of the most famous illustrations of the period is that of the Bermuda-built HPickle (III) capturing the Spanish slaver, Voladora (anglicisedBolodora) off Cuba. The action took place on June 6, 1829, after a chase of 14 hours and a close battle of 90 minutes. The Voladora had left Africa on October 2, 1828 with 335 slaves as cargo.

Along the Guinea coast, a number of strongholds, such as Cape Coast Castle and Elmina Fort had been built to hold slaves awaiting shipment to the United States, Brazil and Caribbean countries.

Some of these forts survive and are now major heritage monuments of the African Diaspora. Men from the ships of the Royal Navy attacked such slaving stations as far off as Mozambique and many of the crews were lost in battle and to illness on far flung anti-slavery assignms.IN the end, the war against the slave trade, though a most noble enterprise, was about as effective as the current war on drugs, which seems unable to stem the tide of the importation of illegal items into the countries of Caribbean and the United States. The oceanic world was then and now a vast and almost ungovernable territory.

Despite the considerable efforts of the Royal Navy, sailing with its men against the slave trade, the end of the slave trade only came in this hemisphere with the final abolition of slavery as an institution in Brazil in 1880s.

Photos show:

1: Bermuda-built HMS Pickle captures ser Voladora. 2: West Africa as "Guinea" from where many slaves came. 3: Cape Coast Castle, a fort of English slaver traders. 4: Boats of HMS Linnett board the ver Mellidon. 5: Burning a slave base in Mozambique in 1851. 6: Elmina Fort, a slave station on the Guinea Coast

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Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. The views expressed are his opinion, not those of the trustees or staff of the Museum. Comments can be sent to har@<ogic.bm or by telephone at 799-5480.